Ninth Piaśnica Memorial Motorcycle Ride on 12 September. Riders to honour victims of the 1939 massacre

On Saturday 12 September, motorcyclists from Pomerania and across Poland will ride together for the ninth time from Wejherowo to the necropolis in the Piaśnica Forest, to honour the victims of the Piaśnica massacre. The Piaśnica Memorial Motorcycle Ride, held under the motto Memory. Passion. Community., has for nine years united the motorcycling community around a single goal: passing the memory of the murdered from generation to generation.

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03 september 2026   |   17:33   |   Source: Gazeta Morska   |   Prepared by: Kamil Kusier   |   Print

fot. Motocyklowy Rajd Piaśnicki

The ninth memorial ride

The route leads from Wejherowo to Piaśnica, where a joint commemoration will be held at the graves of the victims. The driving force behind the event is the Wejherowo Motorcycle Group, with the Wincenty Witos Institute as co-organiser. Participation in the ride is open to all motorcyclists.

– We are riding to Piaśnica for the ninth time, and each time the intention is the same and simple: that the memory of the victims should not fade. The roar of the engines is only the form. The substance is a tribute to the many thousands of murdered people who for decades were spoken of far too quietly – says Marcin Drewa, organiser of the Piaśnica Memorial Motorcycle Ride.

Piaśnica, a wound that must be spoken of

The Piaśnica Forest near Wejherowo is, alongside the Stutthof camp, the largest site of German crimes in Pomerania, sometimes called the Pomeranian Katyń or the Kashubian Golgotha. From the autumn of 1939 to the spring of 1940, German SS units and the paramilitary Selbstschutz murdered there an estimated 12,000 to 14,000 people. The victims included the Pomeranian intelligentsia, teachers, priests, officials and community leaders, as well as psychiatric hospital patients, some of them brought from deep inside the Reich. Among those killed was Blessed Sister Alicja Kotowska, superior of the Resurrectionist convent in Wejherowo. The crime was covered up for decades, and its memory is today documented by the Piaśnica Museum in Wejherowo, a partner of the ride.

Who stands behind the ride

The ninth edition is held under the patronage of the Metropolitan Archbishop of Gdańsk Tadeusz Wojda, Poland's Ministry of National Defence and the Marshal of the Pomeranian region Mieczysław Struk. The event is sponsored by the Port of Gdynia and the Pomeranian Special Economic Zone, and more than a dozen local governments from the Wejherowo and Puck counties are gathered around the ride, from Rumia and Reda to Gniewino, Linia and Władysławowo. The Puck municipality is a partner of the campaign, and the ride's partners also include the Regional Directorate of State Forests in Gdańsk and KPH Group. Gazeta Morska and Daily Mare provide media patronage of the event.

– We invite every motorcyclist, regardless of what they ride and where they come from. In Piaśnica there are no divisions, there is community. And those who do not ride are welcome along the route and at the joint commemoration of the victims at the graves – adds Marcin Drewa, president of the Amor Patriae Suprema Lex association.

The detailed programme of the ride, the assembly time and place are published by the organisers at rajdpiasnicki.pl and on the ride's Facebook profile.

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motocyklowy rajd piaśnicki marcin drewa rajd piaśnicki zbrodnia piaśnicka ii wojna światowa

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